Feel-good story of the day. Musical superstar Pharrell Williams, a Virginia Beach native, is collaborating with the city’s Convention & Visitors Bureau to create two 60-second commercials, featuring his soon-to-be-released song “Virginia,” promoting Virginia Beach as a city open to tourists. Pharrell contacted city officials after the mass-shooting last year, asking how he could help his home town. One of the commercials, reports the Virginian-Pilot, will show the work that takes place in early-morning hours to prepare for visitors: a man cleaning kayaks to rent, a chef chopping vegetables, city workers grooming sand on the beach, hotel staff fluffing pillows. Williams composed the hit song, “Happy,” which went wildly viral as hundreds of groups shot videos of themselves lip syncing to the song.
Good news from Petersburg. After digging itself out of the worst fiscal meltown in modern Virginia history, the City of Petersburg is reporting its first positive fund balance in four years. The city’s “unassigned fund balance,” not earmarked for a specific portion of the General Fund, came in at $2.8 million in Fiscal 2018, reports the Progress-Index. The city has set a goal of increasing the unassigned balance to $7.6 million. Petersburg was no more reckless than any number of other cities across the United States, but Virginia is less forgiving of fiscal incompetence. As a consequence, the poor, largely African-American municipality was forced to make hard choices and enact brutal spending cuts. Now it is emerging more financially disciplined than before. If Petersburg can straighten itself out, so can other deadbeat states and municipalities. If Virginians demanded that Petersburg make sacrifices, we should expect the same of others, too. Puerto Rico, I’m talking to you! Chicago, I’m talking to you!
When “multicultural” means “nonwhite-cultural”… Last week video surfaced of a black female student delivering a “public service announcement” at UVa’s new “Multicultural Student Center.” Apparently, the “multi” part did not include white culture. There were “just too many white people,” the young woman informed the unwelcome visitors. The center, she said, was “a space for people of color.” To its credit, the University administration issued a statement affirming that the center is “open to all members of the University community.” But it appears that a lot of students (including many white students) agree with the young woman. In interviews published on The College Fix, many students agreed with the proposition that minorities need a “safe space” free from whites.
